


while the moon drifts in the skies

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Dan can't sleep.





	while the moon drifts in the skies

Dan at eighteen had a lot of thoughts about the future. 

They were all grandiose. His fears and his dreams alike were larger than life, and he's walked one foot in front of the other through the realities of both. 

But he didn't dream of this at eighteen. He didn't dream of being in a Manchester Tesco at midnight listening to Phil one aisle over laughing with a familiar friend. He didn't dream about holding a box of Shreddies clutched in his right hand and a carton of Phil's favorite lactose free milk in the other. 

He didn't think of how it would steal his breath away sometimes, the weirdness of where life takes them, the twists and turns and sometimes circles that lead them to places that should feel familiar except for how they don't, because Dan as a person doesn't feel familiar in them. 

He's still drunk, maybe. 

That's probably it. 

*

Manchester makes them both nostalgic. 

It's mostly good for Phil. Manchester brought him nothing but step after step into the progression of who he would become. 

For Phil, Manchester was his freedom. His first flat. Moving in with Dan. Easing into adulthood with a safety net of home and family and friends supporting him at every turn. 

For Dan, Manchester feels more bittersweet. He feels like hope and failure all twisted up together. It makes his chest feel hollow and his gut tighten, not out of discontent with where he is but out of that inability to escape knowing that everyone knows that he tried something he and he failed at it. 

He's not that person anymore. He's all grown up now, failing at newer and bigger things, making even grander mistakes. 

It's easier like this, though, surrounded by friends and welcoming faces and conversation that doesn't leave him too much to his own thoughts. 

*

"This is a liminal space," Dan says. He's stretched out on Ian's guest bed staring at the naked plane of Phil's back as Phil sorts through his overnight bag for a shirt to wear. 

"What?" Phil's distracted. 

He probably forgot to pack a shirt. That's what happens when Dan doesn't double check behind him, Dan thinks, a swirl of something warm in his stomach. 

"Liminal space," Dan repeats. 

"Yeah but, how?" Phil swaps to Dan's bag, pulling out a t-shirt. He turns to face Dan as he puts it on. 

Dan watches first. He likes to look at Phil naked, even when there's nothing sexual contained in the moment. His hands itch to stroke over that skin, just to feel the warmth grounding him, just to touch. 

He holds onto the feeling. It'll keep. 

"Someone else's bed at two in the morning." Dan shrugs. "Is it not weird to you? It's like unreality." 

Phil's eyes are a bit red. His hair is a mess. 

"I guess," he says, then yawns without covering his mouth. "Is it different from hotel rooms?" 

"It is," Dan says. "Hotel rooms just kind of like... don't exist when you're not in them." 

Phil's mouth twitches. "You sound like me." 

"Shut up." Dan responds on autopilot. "This is like, someone's home." 

Phil crawls into bed. He hasn't brushed his teeth. He was lingering in the lounge with Ian while Dan did, laughing over some kind of shared memory. 

Dan used to hate so much when they did that. He remembers nights back in Phil's first flat when he'd just get up and walk away without a word, go into Phil's bedroom and crawl into bed and lay on his side facing the wall. 

"I was such a dick when I was younger," he says. 

Phil makes it into bed but on top of the duvet. His eyes are closed but he slaps a hand out and lands his palm across Dan's left nipple. "You were not." 

It's sweet, Dan thinks, how Phil always defends Dan to himself. But it's no secret that Phil's got a much bigger soft spot for Dan of yesteryear than Dan of present day does. 

Dan scoots down on the bed and turns to face Phil, staring at Phil's hair against the pale blue flowery linens. 

Hotels never have flowery linens. Their own bed at home certainly doesn't. Somewhere else in the house, a door closes. He doesn't know who closed it. 

There may be a limited number of options, but still: he doesn't know. 

In his own flat, he always knows. If it's not him, then it's Phil. 

It crawls under his skin, more intriguing than repulsive, but not entirely comfortable either. He feels in-between on nights like this, neither unwanted nor belonging, neither a stranger nor really a friend. 

(He is, Phil would insist, a friend. And in the daytime hours Dan won't be caught up on who knew who first, who invited who. But two am breeds all sorts of things in his mind he works the rest of his life to keep out.)

"Did you fall asleep?" Dan whispers. 

Phil jumps, letting out a strangled sound of surprised. "Oh-" 

"You idiot." Dan speaks softly. "Get under the fucking duvet." 

"Don't be mean to me," Phil whines, burrowing into Dan as soon as he slides into the warmth. 

Dan immediately pushes his hands underneath Phil's stolen shirt. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of someone else's detergent and fabric softener. 

*

He never sleeps well in other people's homes. 

He tries, it just doesn't work. Rest comes in bits and pieces and five am sees him with Phil drooling onto his shoulder and his mind spinning. He thinks about Manchester. Thinks and uni. Thinks about tiny specific moments his mind has buried until now. Thinks about how the same thing happens every time he's here, and how weird it is that the two years he lived in Manchester somehow still feel bigger in his mind than the all the ones he's lived in London since then. 

It's definitely the room. 

Hotel rooms are fine. Like he tried to say to Phil, hotel rooms exist in a state of impernance - everyone belongs in them by virtue of no one actually belonging. He sleeps just fine with industrial machine washed sheets and a flat unimpressive pillow. 

But this room has wallpaper that someone picked out. The old wooden chest of drawers has history. The stain on the carpet by the wardrobe has a story behind it. 

Sentiment, history, stories that Dan doesn't know. 

He used to make Phil tell him all the stories in that old house in Rawtenstall. He wanted to learn it all so he stopped feeling like a stranger in Phil's life when he stayed half his time there. 

And he did, eventually. 

He won't be here long enough to feel comfortable here. He's a practiced insomniac. The lack of sleep doesn't bother him as much as this, the time spent not-sleeping. 

He turns and looks at Phil, fingers curling into Phil's side again. Phil barely even stirs, as practiced at being a human touchstone without it infringing on his rest as Dan is with the whole no sleep thing. 

*

"You didn't sleep," Phil says, yawning and scratching at the center of his chest. He wiggles his shoulders and rubs his nipples and does all those weird morning Phil wake up things. Dan gives it about forty five seconds before he adjusts himself and scratches his balls, too. 

Dan shrugs. "I slept some." 

Phil's hand disappears underneath the duvet. He's oblivious to Dan's smirk, all sincerity when he says. "Not enough."

Dan's bones do feel heavy but his mind feels clearer just for being not alone with himself anymore. He's ready to get moving, ready to make some fun new memories, ready to see what happens. 

He swings his legs out from under the duvet, off the bed. His eyes catch on the stain again. Emily probably spilled something. 

He could ask. But that'd be weird, and he doesn't really need to know. 

He'll leave the liminal spaces to exist as they will with or without his permission, and hope the day is good.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr!](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/181774927170/while-the-moon-drifts-in-the-skies-danphil-rated)


End file.
